Observations and provocations from The Times' Opinion staff

Racist frat boys will be racist frat boys ... on Facebook

February 17, 2010 | 5:13
pm

I feel a little sorry for the UC San Diego frat boys who last weekend thought it would be funny to throw a little bash they dubbed the "Compton Cookout." Apparently, members of Pi Kappa Alpha corralled a couple of hundred socially tone-deaf friends to celebrate Black History Month by pantomiming ghetto life and the black underclass. Now they're taking a drubbing on television, in newspapers and, of course, in the blogosphere. Poor things. Their beer-addled brains probably don't even know what all the fuss is about.

Here's the dress code for the party, according to the invite:

For girls: For those of you who are unfamiliar with ghetto chicks-Ghetto chicks usually have gold teeth, start fights and drama, and wear cheap clothes - they consider Baby Phat to be high class and expensive couture. They also have short, nappy hair, and usually wear cheap weave, usually in bad colors, such as purple or bright red.

They look and act similar to Shenaynay, and speak very loudly, while rolling their neck, and waving their finger in your face. Ghetto chicks have a very limited vocabulary, and attempt to make up for it, by forming new words, such as "constipulated", or simply cursing persistently, or using other types of vulgarities, and making noises, such as "hmmg!", or smacking their lips, and making other angry noises, grunts, and faces.

The objective is for all you lovely ladies to look, act, and essentially take on these "respectable" qualities throughout the day.

This whole incident might have fallen into the category of frat boys behaving like frat boys if they hadn't made one teensy mistake: posting the event on Facebook. The organizers probably didn't envision the details of their gig ever reaching civil rights groups, the Los Angeles Urban League, Craigslist and even Essence Magazine, which posted an item on its website. The organizer has taken down his profile page, but it's cached. In 5 minutes you can tell not only what his hobbies are (golf) but also where he's from.

Meanwhile, UCSD is scrambling to distance itself from the party, reminding everyone that it was not sanctioned by the university, whose principles "reject acts of discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion and political beliefs," height, weight, hair length, food preferences and musical taste.

But it's got to be a drag to be a student there if you're not part of the 98% nonblack population. Personally, I think that 2% needs to transfer the hell out of there immediately. Take my advice, kids, find a school where your classmates aren't prancing around in black-face and asking you dumb questions like whether your skin tans. They're out there.